BAKU, Azerbaijan — There’s no getting around the awkwardness of these climate talks.
American officials made their travel plans for COP29 and sketched out their negotiating points before they knew who would win the election. Then days before the conference began they were jolted into reverse: U.S. negotiators no longer faced sealing a deal that would be celebrated by President Joe Biden, but agreeing to one whose fate is in the hands of a president-elect who says climate change is a conspiracy.
Republicans who flew to Baku foreshadowed the imminent about-face for U.S. climate policy.
“Any commitments made by the Biden Administration at COP29 will simply be lip service to climate groups,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), who led a bipartisan delegation to the summit, said in a statement.
